To Serve the President: Continuity and Innovation in the White House Staff by Bradley H. Patterson

Author:Bradley H. Patterson [Patterson, Bradley H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, Executive Branch, American Government, History, General
ISBN: 9780815701798
Google: hSpJoYYcJUYC
Goodreads: 17472202
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Published: 2008-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

From such an abysmal level of disparagement the vice presidential office has, step by escalating step, gained the recognition it must have as a preparation ground for the presidency. Not until 1918 was a vice president even invited to join cabinet meetings; Thomas Marshall was the first to do so (but after Woodrow Wilson's illness occurred, the White House staff and the first lady barred him from assuming any of the ailing president's duties). In 1937 Garner was included in legislative leadership meetings; in 1941 Henry Wallace was assigned to be head of two wartime agencies; in 1949 the vice president was made a statutory member of the new National Security Council; in 1953 Vice President Richard Nixon began a period of very extensive world travel, meeting with foreign chiefs of state (and engaging in the famous Nixon-Khrushchev “kitchen debate”); in 1961 Vice President Lyndon Johnson moved, with his staff, into the Executive Office Building (keeping his traditional Capitol Hill suite); in 1974 the vice president was provided with an official residence; only in 1978 did Congress authorize payment for an executive branch staff for the vice president in addition to his senatorial aides. Finally in 1978 Vice President Walter Mondale (while retaining his Executive Office Building space) was moved into the West Wing of the White House, a few steps from the Oval Office itself.

Aided by their new West Wing proximity, President Jimmy Carter and Vice President Mondale went on to achieve a considerably higher level of vice presidential effectiveness than had obtained during the Nixon, Johnson, Humphrey, Agnew, Ford, Rockefeller, and Quayle periods. Observed National Journal reporter Don Bonafede at that time: “Perhaps never before have a President and his Vice President worked on such a harmonious note…. Mondale is convinced that a precedent is being set that will guide succeeding administrations.” 2

Mondale was right; the model of vice presidential service that he personified has indeed become a precedent, one that was followed by George H. W. Bush (under Ronald Reagan), and, to the most striking extent ever, by Gore and now by Cheney. “It didn't just sort of happen,” Vice President Cheney recalled.

The fact was as [Governor Bush and I]…went through the search in the spring of 2000, when he'd asked me to head up the search for him, it was clear that he wasn't looking for sort of the traditional vice presidential pick, where you reach out and get your primary opponent or you go get the guy who's going to deliver you a big state like Florida or New York. He really had a notion, a concept in mind, of having somebody who had a lot of experience and could take on major responsibilities and be a significant part of his team. And the more he talked about it, as we went through the process of trying to find somebody to fill that job, I'd hear from him directly, as we were looking for somebody, what his concept was for the vice presidency…. But fact

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